It is known to blend organic polymers with inorganic particulate materials in order to improve certain properties of the polymer. Typically, the organic polymer and the inorganic particulate material are milled together under high shear conditions. Often the milling process degrades the polymer resulting in some poor performance properties. A more elegant way to introduce an inorganic component into an organic polymer is to dissolve the organic polymer in an organic solvent that contains a dissolved or dispersed inorganic component. Upon agitation, the inorganic component becomes intimately mixed with the polymer phase. However, such a process is limited to thermoplastic polymers as it is not possible to disperse particles in thermoset (i.e. crosslinked) polymer systems in that once cured, a crosslinked thermoset polymer will not melt upon the application of heat and is insoluble in solvents.
Another way of introducing the inorganic component into either thermoplastic or thermoset polymers is to disperse the inorganic component into the monomers used to prepare the polymers and to polymerize the monomers. However, many inorganic species will interfere with polymerization reactions. For example, with polyurethanes prepared from polyisocyanates and polyols, the use of inorganic phases based on metal alkoxides can generate alcohols that are reactive with isocyanates and the metal may prematurely catalyze the urethane forming reaction leading to undesirable results. If this technique for introducing inorganic particles into polymers were to be used, the particles would be distributed evenly throughout the polymer phase in instances where no inorganic particle surface treatments are employed.